A short introduction to BPM using Scrum as we use it at Antwebsystem internally and for customer projects

1. BPM and Scrum
Chiang Mai
26. Feb. 2015
Dr. Karl Schindler, Antwebsystems
Bangkok, 22.07.2015

2. Agenda
■
What is a Process
■
What Is BPM
■
Why BPM
■
BPM and Application Development
■
BPM and ERP
■
Traditional BPM
■
Agile BPM as Software Engineering Discipline
■
BPM and OfBiz at Antwebsystems
■
Q&A

3. Process Definition in BPM
■
A process is a repeated action with well defined start and
end.
■
A process is not a continuously ongoing business
function (e.g. Manage personal accounts)

4. 4
What is BPM
■
BPM is a set of processes that help organizations optimize their
business performance. It is a framework for organizing, automating
and analyzing business methodologies, metrics, processes and
systems that drive business performance. [Wikipedia]
■
“Business Process Management (BPM) is a disciplined approach to
identify, design, execute, document, monitor, control, and
measure both automated and non-automated business processes to
achieve consistent, targeted results consistent with an organization's
strategic goals. BPM involves the deliberate, collaborative and
increasingly technology-aided definition, improvement, innovation,
and management of end-to-end business processes that drive
business results, create value, and enable an organization to meet
its business objectives with more agility.”
[https://www.bpminstitute.org/articles/article/article/what-is-bpm-anyway.html]

5. Forrester Report, Prediction 2015
The Age Of The
Customer Is Set
To Disrupt The
BPM Market:
BPM’s Value
proposition shifts
to customer
centricity

6. 6
Why BPM
■
Every organization has a number of processes. Not all are
documented, neither all are followed and are up-to-date.
■
Processes change continuously, but without seeing the big
picture you do not know what changes and if they are
improvements or not. Most often the changes are not even
documented.
■
BPM transforms this rigid pattern into flexible, choreographed
business services through continuous improvement.
■
BPM improves productivity.
■
BPM improves decision-making.
■
BPM improves flexibility.

7. 7
BPM and Application Development (1)
(from Craig Larman „Applying UML and Patterns“)
(p.59) „How should use case be discovered?“
Guideline: The EBP Use Case
For requirement analysis for a computer application
focus on use cases at the level of elementary business
processes (EBPs).
EBP is a term from the business process engineering
field, defined as:
A task performed by one person in one place at one
time, in response to a business event, which adds
measurable business value and leaves the data in a
consistent state.
E.g. Approve Credit or Price Order ..
Application
Development
Business Process

8. 8
BPM and Application Development (2)
„This part is usually not covered by
(classic) application development!“
Business
Process

9. 9
BPM and Application Development (3)
Process
Layer
Integration
Layer
Application
Development

10. 10
BPM Layers
… BPM Provides
Managed, Flexible
Process

11. 11
BPM and ERP
■
In a SOA implementation the process layer contains the process
(workflow) logic. The traditional Electronic Data Processing (EDP) is
done in the Application Layer.
■
A change in the process does not mean a change in the Application
layer. And vice verso.
■
ERP without BPM is like the workflow in the brain with lots of email,
phone calls and thus error prone and as can be often seen in the real
daily work of companies.
■
Adding the BPM layer removes many manual tasks and implements
the notify observer pattern.
■
The user is guided through the process without having to remember
all the process steps.

12. BPM and ERP Example
BPM
ERP

13. 13
Traditional BPM
In most cases this was done in a waterfall approach. Getting the
requirements, modeling the processes, implementing the processes
on proprietary process servers.
■
Analyze
■
Design / Modeling / Improve Process
■
Change Organization Structure
■
Implementing
■
Deploying
■
Execute
■
Monitoring
■
Optimization
■
Re engineering / Continuous Improvement

14. 14
Agile BPM as Software Engineering
Discipline (1)
■
Agility in BPM can be seen from different viewpoints:
– Agility as synonym for flexibility. This means that BPM is flexible
and allows quick adaptation of changes in the business
environment. Thus it is not related to BPM methods.
– Agility in the sense of merging modeling and implementation
phases of the BPM Lifecycle.
– Agility in connection with process development / adaptation
■
To use agility as synonym for flexibility of BPM just
adds to confusion.

15. 15
Agile BPM as Software Engineering
Discipline (2)

16. 16
BPM Analyzes and Implementation
method: Scrum

17. AntWebsystems PAAS
Vendor view

18. AntWebsystems PAAS
Customer view

19. AntWebsystems Scrum System Backlog
List

20. AntWebsystems Scrum System Backlog
Item Detail View

21. 21
BPM and OfBiz at Antwebsystems (1)
Top Level Process of BPM and ERP

22. 22
BPM and OfBiz at Antwebsystems (2)
Backlog creation sub-process

23. BPM and OfBiz at Antwebsystems (3)
The BPM sprint (1)

24. 24
BPM and OfBiz at Antwebsystems (3)
The BPM sprint (4)

25. 25
BPM and OfBiz at Antwebsystems (4)
BPM Tasks

26. 26
Continuous Improvement
■
Is a formal ongoing approach to
improve the processes (based on
feedback from various sources).
■
Processes are constantly
monitored, analyzed, (re)modeled
and implemented
■
Reflects the actual situation.
■
allows the identification of wastes
as the appear. Any changes
needed are sent as a request to
the product owner as described
before and the agile BPM process
starts for those changes to be
realized.

27. 27
Summary
■
BPM Projects and Scrum work well, with or without IT
involvement
■
There is no need to wait for BPM to complete once the
process is improved and activities are to implemented.
■
The BPM backlog is the input for the realization in ERP.
Basically an activity in BPM can become a backlog item
in the ERP process.
■
The same process is used for continuous improvement of
the process

28. Who are we: Antwebsystems
● OFBiz Market leader and one of the top contributors
● More than 10 years of experience with OfBiz
● Customer centric BPM drives the OfBiz customization
● Agile Scrum method used for BPM and OfBiz
● BOI approved, >20 employees
● Automated tests, automatic deployment by customer pressing a button
● Currently supporting OFBiz installations in North America, Europe and Asia
We are always looking for people and partners!
http://www.antwebsystems.com
We do follow the process shown in this presentation in our company!

29. 29
Q&A